Parfit, Kant and Consequentialism

In my last posting on Parfit I discussed the general problems I think there are with his notion of "contractualist consequentialism" as presented in the third of his 2002 Tanner Lectures. In this posting I want to look at the concluding section of this third lecture in order to see how Parfit brings the argument there to a conclusion and to use the discussion of this conclusion to demonstrate again some reasons for thinking that Parfit stacks the deck rather when he reaches the conclusion that Kant gives the basis for a contractualist view that is substantively consequentialist.


Parfit opens the final section of this lecture with a statement that whilst Kant was not a consequentialist the argument's point is not to examine the reasons why Kant was not a consequentialist but instead to point to some reasons for taking it to be the case that we can develop a consequentialist view by appealing to some elements of Kant's positions. In making this case Parfit appeals to an important distinction. The distinction is between what he terms Kant's "moral beliefs" on the one hand and the "implications of his principles" on the other. The former are what are involved in Kant's not being a consequentialist on Parfit's view, whilst the latter, by contrast, point to consequentialist conclusions. This distinction is an important one, as we shall see in looking at the concluding phase of Parfit's argument.


Parfit's case is built by reference to the principle he extracted from Kant's Formula of Humanity as the first part of it. This principle is what Parfit terms "Kant's Consent Principle" (KCP). The "consent" involved is framed by Parfit as "rational consent" and it is connected to the act consequentialist view that rational consent can be seen as agreement that everyone be treated in ways that would make things go best. If we look at rational consent in this manner, then treating people in a way that implies adoption of an axiological standard of value is equivalent to treating them in ways to which they could rationally consent. One of the points Parfit rushes to make here is, however, meant to assuage a problem Rawls raised against utilitarianism. Rawls indicated that a problem with accepting "classical utilitarianism" was that it required some to  sacrifice themselves for the benefit of others and that such a sacrifice was one that the ones being sacrificed could accept only if they were prepared to sacrifice the very point of being in an ethical space at all (so it is connected to his problem with the "separateness of persons"). However Parfit thinks he has a reply here as if the act in question would impose great burdens on some for the sake of greater benefits for others then this act would not make things go best but instead go worse. This is despite the fact that the person in question might "rationally consent" to the act. On this basis Parfit argues that consequentialists don't have to be seen as utilitarians.


The separation of consequentialism from utilitarianism that this argument involves does, however, require, as a consequence that an optimific act is not one that can be assessed only through the prism of rational consent. Rational consent is thus not a means to determine the rightness of the act if such rightness is standardly viewed in terms of optimific understanding. In which case, whilst Parfit thinks that KCP could be accepted by act consequentialists, it is not sufficient as a standard of rightness for them. 


Parfit, however, takes the argument a different way as he now moves away from the consent principle and back to the principle he earlier termed "Kant's Contractualist Formula" (for which see this earlier posting). The contractualist formula requires that we appeal to principles that everyone could rationally choose and we could not rationally will that everyone accepts act consequentialist principles and so the act consequentialist principle is not one we should act upon. Notably, however, and remarkably, Parfit has here done something that cuts heavily against the grain. He has presented act consequentialism as sufficiently robust that it can provide a defence for the separateness of persons, such a defence that it can be distinguished from utilitarianism, and then, having done this, has used an appeal to contractualist views about universal rational acceptance, to undercut act consequentialism after all. It would, according to standard ways of presenting the moral situation, be rather more apt to say that act consequentialism, like act utilitarianism, is insufficiently robust to prevent appeal to demanding notions of self-denial and then use that to support a view of consent principles that did not view the latter in optimific terms. So Parfit's initial argumentative strategy is, to say the least, very odd.


Parfit refers now to the argument Sidgwick famously used that it would be best, from a utilitarian point of view, if not everyone was a utilitarian. This argument, which shows that utilitarianism lacks transparency, is one that Parfit endorses here against act consequentialism. In doing so he appears to appeal to the view that moral beliefs matter in the sense that if we knew it to be true that it would not make things go best if everyone acted in ways dictated by principles of maximising what would go best, we should prefer it that not everyone had the belief that they should make things go best. Indeed, not only does Parfit appear to make this move, but he also uses it to prefer rule consequentialism to act consequentialism since rule consequentialism requires us to act on principles whose acceptance would make things go best even should this be the view that not everyone believe that they should act in ways that make things go best.


Parfit now constructs an argument that is meant to move from  Kant's "contractualist formula" that we ought to act on principles whose universal acceptance everyone could rationally choose to the conclusion that rule consequentialism is correct on Kantian contractualist grounds. Now there are several stages in this argument which bear close analysis if a response is to be made. The first point to look at is how Parfit views reasons. Parfit introduces and critically interrogates the premise everyone could rationally choose whatever they would have sufficient reason to choose. This premise is interrogated as what we have sufficient reason to choose is argued by Parfit to depend on facts whilst what we rationally choose is, by contrast, based on beliefs. The difference matters since false beliefs give us reasons to choose something that it is not ultimately rational to choose. So the application of Kant's "contractualist formula" requires congruence between beliefs and facts. 


The next premise is to the effect that everyone would have sufficient reason to choose that everyone accept the principles whose acceptance would make things go best assuming the congruence we have established as a requirement for this. Now, in critically evaluating this premise, Parfit points to the "impartial reason-involving" sense of normative reason as the basis for viewing how to evaluate whether or not things have gone best. However, in assessing this claim, Parfit also refers back to his earlier distinction between "moral beliefs" and "principles" since he rejects the objection that such a principle might produce immoral action on the grounds that such an objection illegitimately introduces moral beliefs. There is a problem with this reply since it assumes that the contractualist procedure is thus far not loaded or is effectively neutral between different views. But it is not. In taking our standard in terms of an axiological conception of evaluation we have already adopted a consequentialist standard into our reasoning so it is evident such a standard will be our conclusion. If, however, our argument precisely concerns a question about how "rational consent" is to be understood, for example, then we cannot simply stipulate that it be seen in not merely an impartial sense but in terms of a view of impartial reason that is pre-set in terms of outcomes. Viewing impartial reason in terms of outcomes incorporates a "moral belief" into the "neutral" evaluation. And it does so in a way that is then used to appeal to "principles" as if they are not described in ways that are set against other "principles" where the other principles are then merely demoted to the status of "beliefs".


The reason why Parfit thinks that such a division between "principles" and "beliefs" is stable is because he sees the former as tracking "facts" and making them congruent with "true beliefs" whilst an insistence on "moral belief" simpliciter is simply an argument from what we "already accept". However the reference to "facts" here is one that involves a view of the factual that is itself normatively loaded since it takes factual support to consist in a view about what is axiologically supported and so it is not neutral between views.


Parfit argues that in pursuing this strategy he is following a standard contractualist procedure and he even appeals here to the example of Rawls to support him. Rawls, however, when constructing the original position, does so by building the position out of what he termed "formal constraints of the concept of right" and such constraints are not discussed by Parfit. Particularly important from such constraints was a solution formally argued to the "priority problem" with regard to principles. Parfit stipulates a solution by taking axiological criteria to be supreme, something that cuts precisely against his earlier recognition of the point that there is a case to be made against abstracting from the separateness of persons.


Parfit next goes on to consider this claim by balancing what he regards as the considerations of personal points of view with those of impartial reason. In doing so Parfit stresses the idea that there are non-self-interested personal reasons which, indeed, there are in terms of different conceptions of the good. However, Parfit does not consider this question in terms of different conceptions of the good but only in terms of personal reasons being seen, if they conflict with impartial ones, as self-interested. Parfit does not consider that personal reasons that oppose what he views as "impartial" reason may also be principled in their opposition. Because of this Parfit simply arrives at the conclusion that it is always optimific to follow impartial reason and that we should accept impartial reasons as personal reasons given that this is so. But this is not evident at all if there are impartial reasons that are non-optimific in form as is the case with non-consequentialist views. 


Because Parfit has construed the choice situation in the way he has he cannot avoid the problem of unreasonable burdens that, at the beginning of the discussion, he wished to argue was not a necessary element of consequentialist views. Assuming that one holds a non-optimific view of goodness by means of a conception of the priority of the right over the good one will always be told that ones view of the good is only personal and should be sacrificed optimifically which is to abstract from the separateness of persons in precisely the way Rawls complains of. This is still the consequence of Parfit's preferred rule consequentialism which is why it still incorporates the classic consequentialist move of requiring us to see impartial reasons as always optimific in form. Parfit thinks he can appeal against this since he argues that ultimately he is appealing to Kant's "contractualist formula" and basing rule consequentialism on this. However this is dishonest as the contractualist formula, in application, is always used to bolster the conception that impartial reason is framed in terms of optimific outcomes so it is only a supplementary principle meant as a support for consequentialism and is not, as Parfit pretends, foundational for ethical principles. 


So whilst Parfit concludes by saying he has not argued that we should become rule consequentialists but only that Kantian and contractualist premises support rule consequentialist conclusions this is not what his argument shows. What his argument shows is, instead, that if contractualist and consent principles are interpreted axiologically then they support consequentialism. But that is only because they have been pre-defined in such a way that consequentialism is their inevitable focus. Parfit assumes that the only response to this argument is to favour "moral beliefs" over "principles" but, as I have argued, this division is founded on an incorporation of a "belief" into his account of "principles" in the first place.

Parfit on Contractualist Consequentialism

In my previous posting I objected to the account Parfit gives of the "veil of ignorance" and in the posting prior to this I advanced an account of deliberative rationality that challenged the view articulated by Parfit. Both of these postings were responses to part of the argument presented in the third of Parfit's 2002 Tanner Lectures. However the arguments discussed in the previous two postings were essentially negative in import for Parfit, ways of clearing the way for the view of contractualism that he wishes to present within this third lecture. The argument that is presented here is for something that has not previously been identified as a possible contender in the area of moral theory, a notion of contractualism that is consequentialist. In this posting I aim to do two things: both present the considerations that enable Parfit to arrive at the understanding that it is possible to reconcile consequentialism with contractualism and also to show why the combined view that thereby arises is unsustainable. So my purpose here is both reconstructive of Parfit's argument and critical of its import. This ensures that this posting will be more than usually involved.


After replying to Rawls in the first two parts of this third lecture Parfit returns to his original account of the basic notion of contractualism in his view, the notion of 'rational agreement', a notion that requires unanimity. In doing so he contrasts the idea of such agreement as understood on the minimal view of David Gauthier with what he terms "Kant's Contractualist Formula", the derivation of which I treated previously. Now, in contrasting these two views at this point, Parfit points a methodological contrast between them based on the fact that the Gauthier type formula requires adoption of principles that everyone would choose whilst, on Parfit's construal "Kant's Contractualist Formula" (or KCF) only requires adopting principles that each reasoner could see as required themselves. (Notice that the contrast between them is thus structurally similar to that between the two versions of the veil of ignorance treated in my previous posting.) So rather than conducting one thought-experiment in which we try to find principles for all of us there are many thought-experiments, basically one each in which we use reference to an understanding of moral belief in order to reach the principles that everyone would accept if rational.


Now in justifying KCF over the Gauthier type formula Parfit appeals to certain safeguards that contractualists are concerned should be in place. One of these is to eliminate inequalities of bargaining power (something Gautheir's formula does not do for reasons that Rawls provides). There is no requirement for each of us to choose principles just on the grounds that others will choose them as we first ask if they are reasonable to us. A second concern that is meant to be met is that we should avoid the outcome where some are viewed as capable of bearing burdens for the sake of others (as often arises from utilitarian conceptions). This second concern is what Parfit terms the contractualists' "protective aim". Again Parfit argues that a Gauthier type view cannot achieve this as the aim of reaching unanimous agreement gives those who possess unequal power an advantage (though, notably, only if we accept the "equal chances" view of the veil of ignorance). Parfit again misunderstands Rawls' view here since he takes Rawls to adopt a self-interest conception of rationality although he had previously indicated he knew this to be false.


KCF neither requires unanimous agreement nor has a veil of ignorance and these characteristics of it are meant to show that it achieves the "protective aim" of contractualism better than previous alternatives considered. Further, its failure to guarantee unanimity means that should it achieve it then this would be all the more impressive. However KCF does imply a particular view of reasons which Parfit elaborates as a "wide value-based" conception as opposed to desire-based theories. The value-based conception is, however, one in which "we have strong reasons to care about our own well-being, and in a temporally neutral way". However, least one voice the view that this implies an egoistic conception, Parfit is quick to point out that it is part of KCF to assume that we can rationally care as much about some other things as well as this, including here the well-being of others and "justice" (although he takes no time here to define this latter notion). So when we adopt KCF we take with it this view of reasons. I'll return subsequently to the point that if we see KCF as involving this view of reasons then we will have grasped KCF in such a way that it precisely is not, despite Parfit's arguments to the contrary, really a contractualist conception at all.


However before we move on to the reasons why I take this to the case it is important to next follow the claims that Parfit makes that enables him to arrive at the conclusion that KCF is both contractualist and consequentialist. The first point to be introduced is the criteria that Parfit gives for KCF succeeding in meeting the problem that contractualism aims to address. This is that it must meet a 'uniqueness condition', such that, there is some relevant principle, and only one principle, that everyone could rationally choose. In illustrating a way that a principle could meet such a condition Parfit gives an example in which there exists a quantity of unowned goods that no one has a special claim on and the distribution of which would have the same total sum of benefits however it was done. In such a case, says Parfit, we can all see that a basic principle of equal shares applies. It is notable that the example of application is a distributive one of some set of resources and not, for example, of a criteria that would define rights or liberties. Such an example already implies a definite conception of what type of thing we should be concerned with when aiming for a notion of unanimity.


A wrinkle that is worth observation in terms of how Parfit justifies the appeal to equal shares is that there is a difference, on his view, between consenting to acts and choosing principles. So we might consent to an unequal share, taking less for ourselves in order to aid others. However this is quite different to adopting a principle that some (whether ourselves or others) should as a matter of course have unequal shares since that principle is not one we could rationally accept. (On the basis of the wide value-based conception of reasons.) This argument is used also to show that the type of principle we should end up with is not act utilitarianism since act utilitarianism could state that it is permissible to give some no benefits at all since the net effects would not thereby be affected.


Having reached this point in his argument Parfit turns next to a further connection between moral beliefs and beliefs about reasons suggesting that our moral beliefs may partly depend on our beliefs about reasons. There are two ways that this connection is perceived by him to go. On the one hand we might hold a view, such as contractualism, which determines the understanding of the rightness of acts by reference to the relationship of such acts to principles that everyone could rationally accept. On the other hand, we might find that moral beliefs depend in some way on our non-moral beliefs about the kinds of things that are good or bad. Now the second sort of relationship between moral and non-moral beliefs turns out to be the one that Parfit exploits and he does so at the expense of the first sort of relation. An example of this second sort of relation concerns our general understanding of hedonic states. The point that Parfit makes about these states is that our reaction to them involves us in accepting that there are certain actions that are good or bad to perform and that this understanding reflects what he terms a "reason-involving" sense of goodness and badness. 


In claiming that we have a "reason-involving" response to hedonic states Parfit takes himself to be in disagreement with Kant given that Kant does not take inclinations to be themselves reason-giving. Parfit views this as a claim to the effect that whilst hedonic states may not be the ground of a moral claim they still could be the ground of a reason-giving claim and that Kant ignores the latter. This, however, is an odd reading of Kant since Kant claims not that there may not be reasons to relate to hedonic states in certain ways but that these reasons are part of the formulation of maxims and it is the endorsement of the maxims that provides the reasons in question, not simple experience of the hedonic states alone. Putting this in Parfit's terms it is not that the hedonic states are themselves "reason-involving" in the sense that the mere experience of them produces a reason to respond in a given way. It is rather that we take the states, in conjunction with maxims in which they feature, to provide grounds for appropriate actions. And this is quite different from the way Parfit puts the case as the way he puts it suggests that it is the experience of the states simpliciter that is reason-involving and that is what Kant denies.


Parfit takes hedonic states to be "reason-involving" as he assumes that there are person-relative reasons always to avoid painful states. I have denied this claim even though it seems true intuitively. The reason I deny it is simply that the painful state is not itself motivationally sufficient for action as it has to be related to other considerations that are prevailing at the time it is experienced. Parfit's claim could be reformulated as saying that pain is something we avoid cateris paribus but the conditions involved remain important and indicate that the response to pain is not one we normally assume to be simply permissive of actions following a certain pattern (say, of avoidance). Further Parfit moves swiftly from the claim that the response to hedonic states has this person-relative sense to the more general claim that painful states are impersonally bad. It is important to note that there are counter-intuitive aspects to Parfit's claim here just as I have indicated there are to the way I denied his claim concerning person-relative reasons. The counter-intuitive sense of his claim becomes apparent in the following sentence: "If more people suffer, that would be worse, even though it may not be worse for any of these people". 


In a claim like the one just cited it becomes apparent that Parfit conceives of hedonic states in an aggregative fashion so that the more they point one way or another en masse the worse or better the general situation is. This is to view hedonic states, however, in complete abstraction from the experience had of them as Parfit confesses when he agrees that the "worse" outcome on his view may not be worse for anyone. This indicates that the "non-moral" sense of badness that he has is radically impersonal since its assessment of badness is not one that refers to criteria of what is bad for persons. This "non-moral" claim is, however, one that it is not obvious should be accepted as a serious criteria of goodness and badness by persons. Parfit sloughs over this point passing from the acceptance that the "non-moral" sense of goodness and badness he is advocating is impersonal to the quite different claim that it is agent-neutral. It is not at all evident that a seriously agent-neutral claim is one that has to be impersonal. After all if we think of the "mere means" criteria of the Formula of Humanity we refer to an agent-neutral claim as it specifies a way of relating to persons generally regardless of who they are but it is not thereby "impersonal".


Parfit's conception of agent-neutrality is of a form of reason that is a "reason for everyone" and this applies to the application of the Formula of Humanity but it does not apply to his kind of "non-moral" form of goodness since the latter is in fact a reason for no one which is precisely implied by the notion of its impersonality. Each of us has, Parfit implies, reasons to prevent or relieve pain, whether of oneself or others. But this is untrue not merely because it is not always possible to do so but also because the pain experienced may not be, in the given case, a "worse" state for the person in question. This is directly admitted by Parfit and since it is so it follows that the response to pain does not have the over-riding "non-moral" value Parfit claims it has. Not only is this so but if we adopted a different standard, from the "mere means" criteria of the Formula of Humanity, for example, we would have an agent-neutral way of responding to others that was not impersonal and which would be a general guide to conduct.


Now if the first point of difficulty with Parfit's view concerns the way in which he slides from 'agent-neutral' reasons to "impersonal" ones the second problem arises from the conception of how to weight the reasons that his "impersonal" view has led us to consider. Parfit states that this should be in terms of outcomes so that the best "impartial" reason for preferring something is if the features it has give everyone "the strongest impartial outcome-given reasons to prefer this outcome". At this point it appears we have simply specified a consequentialist view and so one may wonder what happened to the apparent contractualist procedure. Parfit is sensitive to this point and agrees that the impartial outcome-given reasons should not be assumed to be the only impartial reasons. Further Parfit also accepts that some other types of impartial reasons might outweigh on given occasions impartial outcome-given reasons. However whilst Parfit refers here to rights as other sources of impartial reasons he gives no general account of rights and nor does he provide any lexical procedure for describing the relationship between rights and impartial outcome-given reasons. 


The view thus far is described by Parfit as "semi-consequentialist" since it gives some weight to impartial outcome-given reasons but not necessarily over-riding weight as yet. Consequentialism generally does give over-riding weight to such reasons as Parfit agrees in specifying act-consequentialism as the view that acts are right just in case they make things go best in terms of impartial outcome-given reasons. Parfit is clearly no more willing to endorse this view than he was act utilitarianism but this leaves him open to the attractions of rule consequentialism in which acts will be right if they are permitted by one of the principles whose acceptance would make things go best in an impartial reason-giving sense. Since this conception is related to the "wide value-based" view of reasons it is a form of consequentialism that Parfit feels able to term a reason-consequentialism. 


At this point the basic problem emerges with some clarity. Contractualism involves the conception that we aim to develop a view that understands that as right which we can all rationally accept. However Parfit understands this claim by means of the consequentialist idea that was already expressed in his value-based conception of reasons to the effect that we have strong reasons to care about considerations of well-being and subsequently moves from this to the understanding of impartial reasons in terms of impersonal outcomes that no one in particular ever has some reason to want. This ensures that his conception is one that presents as a reason we should all rationally accept a consideration that no one of us has any reason to endorse. And that hardly meets the contractualist criteria.


Parfit's claim that contractualists and consequentialists are "climbing the same mountain on different sides" is essentially built on the claim that the consequentialist appeal to impartial outcome-based reasons will coincide with contractualist appeals to what everyone has a rational basis for choosing but in doing so it overlooks that the former presents for the latter reasons that no one has any particular reason to endorse. Not only is this so but there is a further problem involved in the relationship between these theories. This problem was expressed by Rawls in section 5 of A Theory of Justice where Rawls contrasted two methods of moral reasoning. On one of them "the good is defined independently from the right, and then the right is defined as that which maximises the good". This is the means by which consequentialism works. It has an independent conception of the good, as Parfit claims here when he speaks of hedonic criteria as providing a "non-moral" standard of goodness. This methodology contrasts with the other one that Rawls speaks of and which he follows Kant in preferring. This is outlined by Kant as indicating that it is only by means of and through the moral law that we arrive at a view of the good. So the good is not then independently defined but viewed rather through the prism of the right.


This second type of relationship is implied in contractualism which views the good not as an independent variable but as something that is arrived at by means of right reasoning. On the contractualist conception the right is that which we would all rationally want and the good emerges as that which is constrained by appeal to this notion of the right and thus becomes manifest to us by means of it. This methodology is quite distinct from that of consequentialism and is directly opposed to it. Not only is this so but correctly seeing the right as prior to the good in the way that Rawls and Kant direct us to implies that there is always a basis of lexical priority between the "moral" and the "non-moral" goods since the nature of what can be permissibly classed under the latter is defined by the former. 


Parfit cites Rawls' account of the way that consequentialist theories involve giving the good priority over the right and appears to agree with Rawls that this indicates a problem with such theories. However the reason Parfit gives for rejecting the claimed priority of the good is not Rawls' reason and it is also not a good reason. Parfit states that if consequentialism requires us to take the good as prior to the right then this implies that the right is trivially defined so that we end up with tautological claims. This is not the way Rawls understands the point. Instead Rawls' point is that taking the good to be prior to the right ensures that the independently defined good is one that is given over-riding priority in considerations that inevitably require abstraction from the nature of reference to persons. This is precisely what we have seen follows also from Parfit's view. Parfit attempts to avoid this by stating that whether the right or the good is made prior you end up with trivial claims but this is simply false. On the one hand you produce a claim that there is an impartial reason-involving good which is grasped in an outcome-based way (as in his view) whilst on the other hand you arrive at a conception of law and right that defines and describes what can be taken to be good (as on Rawls and Kant's view). And the difference between these two is anything but trivial.


The development of Parfit's own view is one that he sets up as involving a criteria that he thinks does mitigate its general consequentialist thrust when he introduces criteria of distribution of benefits and burdens that is meant to favour an egalitarian conception. So the goodness of outcomes is then taken not in a bluntly aggregative sense but in a way that relates this aggregation to the way the benefits and burdens are distributed. Rawls considered such a view in section 5 of Theory and determined that it would no longer be "teleological" in a classical sense as it would now take distribution to be an independent variable. Taking it to be so implies a notion of right (through distribution) that is meant to apply to the impartial outcome-based reasons and to provide a way of assessing different outcomes. Notably it does not affect the understanding of agent-neutral goods as impersonal goods however so it remains in its basic orientation a theory that is still based on the priority of the good over the right. Simply accepting that not all distribution is equal so that there is some form of distribution that is morally preferable to others and thus endorsing an egalitarian principle is not in itself sufficient to dilute the general consequentialist thrust of the theory. The nature of what is good and the form of right in relation to this good remain broadly consequentialist with only the balancing of distribution taken to be one that has a basis for preference that is not blunt. But the rationale for the preference for equality is not evident and the goods distributed are still essentially understood in a way that abstracts from consideration of the good of persons.


In the next posting I am going to conclude assessment of the third of Parfit's 2002 lectures by coming back to how the conclusion of his argument relies on his assessment of KCF and what this tells us about the kind of reading of Kant that Parfit has undertaken in his work. 

Samuel Freeman's Review of Parfit

In the latest issue of The New York Review of Books there is a review of On What Matters by Samuel Freeman. Since I have previously covered reviews of the work by Simon Blackburn and Philip Kitcher it seems only right to provide a general summary and response also to this one by Freeman.


Freeman's review opens with comments aimed at the general reader concerning the philosophical attempt to explain the purposes of common sense moral rules and to resolve moral dilemmas. Freeman refers to Kant almost immediately afterwards mentioning both the unconditional character of moral demands on Kant's conception and the Formula of Humanity. The argument of the first part of the Groundwork is implicitly referred to when Freeman mentions the view that the categorical imperative "justifies" our common sense duties to one another and also provides a "more fine-grained method of reasoning" concerning what we ought to do. Following Parfit's own startling conjunction of names in the "Preface" to On What Matters Freeman moves from Kant to Sidgwick and the latter's argument in The Methods of Ethics that it is the principle of utility that truly "justifies" common sense morality. The move from Kant to Sidgwick also allows Freeman, however, to refer to the Rawlsian challenge to the dominance that the utilitarian tradition had, until recently, in the area of social theory.


The introduction of the account of utilitarianism into Freeman's narrative also allows him to mention that the method of ethical appraisal promoted by this school is really a specific form of the general notion of consequentialism and that many consequentialists today have abandoned a simple commitment to hedonism and do not necessarily view utility as the best way of assessing consequences. After mentioning the shift within moral theory from utilitarianism to consequentialism Freeman fills out his picture of the general state of contemporary moral reflection by mentioning Thomas Scanlon's notion of "contractualism", a much more recent theory than Kantian and consequentialist ones. Scanlon is presented by Freeman as someone who modified the Rawslian view so that it was applied not to the theory of justice but instead to personal duties or duties towards others. Not only is this the basis of contractualism according to Freeman but this view is related by him to the Kantian one in terms of recognising the equal status of persons as integral to moral reasoning and, in making this emphasis so significant, as ensuring that these accounts stand together against consequentialism.


As Freeman mentions in a footnote, the three theories of Kantianism, consequentialism and contractualism are the centre of Parfit's book and are related together by him as the key traditions that have to be brought together, a point that ensures that virtue theory is simply left without consideration by Parfit. Parfit intends overall to articulate what he terms a "Triple Theory" that will combine optimific considerations with Kantian and contractualist ones thus producing what Parfit calls a "Kantian rule consequentialism". This argument for a "Triple Theory" of normative ethics is combined by Parfit with a general account of moral reasons that is aimed at showing their objectivity with the arguments in favour of this claim being the centre of the first and the sixth parts of the book. The latter claim is specifically presented by Parfit in response to subjectivist views of reasons and in riposte to a claimed nihilism with regard to values said to characterise much contemporary theorising about morals.


Parfit's attack on subjectivism is rightly presented by Freeman as mainly consisting in responses to the "Humean" theory of reasons that understands reasons primarily through the prism of desires. In response to such a claim Parfit insists on an account of objective reasons based on a view of intentional objectivity but the nature of the specific theory Parfit here elaborates and the problems with it are not considered by Freeman who simply presents it as laudable that Parfit attacks relativistic subjectivism without discussing whether such an attack is, as stated, either too blunt or unconvincing. This is a peculiar weakness in Freeman's review and is likely connected to a dialectical strategy of refuting the "Triple Theory" but upholding the significance of Parfit's book in terms of the defence of "objectivity" in morals. One of the reasons why Freeman may have taken this tack is due to the prevalence of forms of the "Humean" theory in contemporary economics and the need to challenge such a model as applied there.


Freeman looks at Parfit's treatment of the Formula of Humanity and chides Parfit for considering it in separation from Kant's general moral theory. However there are further significant problems both in terms of how Freeman views Parfit's discussion of the Formula of Humanity and with how Freeman understands the place of the Formula of Humanity in Kant's own theory. With regard to Parfit's treatment Freeman stresses the way that the discussion of the "mere means" requirement appears to be favoured by Parfit above other considerations though this point is here not well made given that Parfit considers another point to flow from the Formula of Humanity than this. Parfit also stresses a notion of "rational consent" that he articulates as the basis of the first part of the Formula and, whilst Freeman may not find this a persuasive reading of the Formula it is remiss of him to simply present Parfit as viewing the Formula only through the "mere means" requirement. It is true that Parfit does not view the Formula in terms of a "respect requirement" but Parfit does provide arguments for not viewing the "respect requirement" as really providing further normative guidance and this requires to be discussed and answered.


Freeman indicates some awareness of the "respect requirement" but moves rather quickly from referring to it to an account of some themes from Kant's philosophy of right including the "innate right to freedom" and the notion of independence from being constrained by another's choice. Since these themes belong not in Kant's general moral theory but to the account of right it is not at all clear why they are referred to by Freeman and it is not remiss of Parfit to have failed to engage with them when formulating his notion of a Kantian consequentialism. It is correct to argue that the Formula of Humanity appears to include a constraint on action in terms of describing something one should not act against but Freeman fails to bring this point out and generic reference to the notion of "individual rights" is insufficient to make clear the specific problem with Parfit's view of the Formula of Humanity.


Parfit is, in any case, as Freeman recognises, more concerned with Kant's discussion of universal law than with the Formula of Humanity. The discussion of universal law is interpreted by Parfit in accord with a principle taken from Thomas Scanlon so that it becomes understood as prescribing the requirement that everyone ought to follow the principles whose universal acceptance everyone could rationally will. This notion of a "Kantian Contractualism" is one that requires viewing the notion of universal law in terms that are not derived from Kant himself but Freeman emphasises more the application of the principles that follow for Parfit. Freeman terms Parfit's application "peculiar" and part of what is thus peculiar is the way the combination of Kant with Scanlon is meant to underpin rule consequentialism. Parfit requires us to see the reference to what makes things go best as grounded on some kind of formal rule process built into an understanding of rational willing. This has the result, as Freeman puts it, that "morality is then a kind of efficiency in promoting universal good". 


Once we have a concentration of this optimific sort ethics clearly becomes axiological and this is part of what Freeman rightly regards as controversial in Parfit's view. Kant and Scanlon are generally taken to have provided moral views that are not consequentialist (although there are other varieties of "Kantian consequentialism" such as the one articulated by David Cummiskey). In making the move of bringing Kant and Scanlon into alliance with consequentialism Parfit follows the method inaugurated by Sidgwick who made a similar move the centre of The Methods of Ethics. Freeman suggests that this move on Parfit's part will have particular effect for Kantians since he claims that: "Parfit's consequentialist interpretation of the categorical imperative will stimulate philosophers for years to come".


Despite making the suggestion that Parfit's reading of Kant is one that is likely to be philosophically significant Freeman rejects quite central aspects of Parfit's methodology. One of the elements of Parfit's work that provoked Simon Blackburn's ire was the insistent use of Trolley problems in the work and Freeman joins with Blackburn in finding recourse to them problematic. One of the reasons Freeman gives for rejecting the use of Trolley problems is that such problems can be varied with resultant differences of appraisal. Freeman also cites Susan Wolf's reply printed in the second volume of On What Matters in which she claims that there is "no single principle" underlying our moral intuitions in Trolley type cases. In citing Wolf (and also Allen Wood) in opposition to the use of these cases, however, Freeman seems simply content to state their objections to Parfit's procedure without considering the extensive replies Parfit includes to interlocutors, something which certainly seems rather odd. Freeman also seems to rest content with claiming that if Trolley problems really are of little use in moral philosophy that this in itself undermines Parfit's 'Triple Theory' thereby implying that there are no substantive arguments given by Parfit with regard to the formulation of the 'Triple Theory' that are separable from the use of Trolley Problems and this contention, as put, seems a rather strong reading of the recourse to Trolley Problems.


Freeman's overall evaluation is strongly negative since he argues that Parfit does not address the questions as to why we should view morality axiologically or provide us with a view of what the ultimate good is that we are to optimise. However, the first point is stronger than Freeman himself ultimately puts it since he recognises a strain in Parfit's work that derives from Sidgwick and is based on the notion of a general impersonality. It may be, as Freeman says, a kind of "refined philosophical sensibility" that prefers this concentration to one on personal affairs of the sort provided by Scanlon but it is the basis of a ground for axiological conceptions of morality. In so being it is, as Freeman rightly stresses, somewhat out of key with Kantian and Scanlonian views of morality and this cuts against the sense that the basis of the three views Parfit treats can easily be reconciled. However in considering why Parfit takes it that there is an ultimate ground of unity between the views Freeman retreats again to the assertion that Parfit's argument substantively depends on an inductive generalisation from the consideration of Trolley problems and this argument is one I think over-states the importance of the Trolley problems Parfit considers.  


It is a separate problem and a better point to argue that Parfit is never specific about the general good that is to be optimised though it seems to me that part of the basis of this general good is to be found in the view of objective reasons that Parfit defends and which Freeman fails to challenge. Freeman concludes his review with a statement to the effect that Sidgwick's syncretic project has been brought to a point by Parfit that ensures it has a greater range than even Sidgwick would have thought possible. Whilst this might be true the grounds of the difficulty with the 'Triple Theory' cannot simply reside within normative ethics alone but must also be grounded on the account of the "objectivity" of ethics that Parfit articulates, an account that Parfit himself presents as importantly in tension with the kind of Rawlsian view that Freeman himself defends and to which therefore Freeman should have taken time to respond in his review.

Parfit and Kant on Moral Dilemmas

In the previous posting on Parfit I looked at Chapter 8 of Climbing the Mountain, the first full monograph-length version of what later was to become published as On What Matters and suggested some significant problems with the treatment Parfit gave there of Kantian formulas of universal law. In this posting I'm going to look at Chapter 9 of Climbing the Mountain where Parfit moves on to addressing some moral dilemmas and connects the understanding of these dilemmas to questions about universalisation tests.


One of the points that this chapter raises concerns the world that is being referred to when universalisation tests are formulated. Is it the "actual" world or not? There are good reasons to think not, not least some remarks Kant makes in his discussion of the typic in the Critique of Practical Reason where he makes clear that we frequently give ourselves a pass with regard to moral requirements precisely on the grounds that not everyone will follow our example in the actual world. Parfit construes this point as requiring the test that is formulated by the Law of Nature Formula to be understood as asking us whether it would be better if no one acted in a certain way.


Parfit takes the Law of Nature Formula to work best when applied to maxims of which 3 things are true: a) it is possible for many people to act on this maxim; b) whatever the number of people who act on it the effects of each such act would be similar; c) these effects would be roughly equally distributed between different people. After stating these points Parfit moves on to the real business of this chapter which is to discuss moral dilemmas, beginning with the case of "each-we dilemmas" in which "if each rather than none of us does what would be better in some kind of way, we would be doing what would be, in this way, worse" (171). These cases are next summarised in terms of well-being.


The basic move that Parfit thus makes, apparently casually, in this chapter, is to examine types of moral dilemma that are based on a general consequentialist appraisal basis and to apply versions of the universality test to cases so considered. Such cases have a wide range, involving free-rider considerations for example, as applied to "public goods" such as the provision of law and order (with cases of tax evasion having force here). The general cases of each-we dilemmas also touch upon special questions from common sense morality that involve those to whom we have special obligations (such as children, clients or colleagues). Each-we dilemmas arise in these cases in particular affecting the people Parfit dubs M-related to us.


Moral cases of each-we dilemmas are often resolved by appeal to forms of utilitarianism but Parfit considers here Kantian solutions though he does so not by asking the question with which the chapter is titled, namely, "what if everyone did that", but rather its negative complement, "what if no one did that". The reasons for invoking this formula in these cases, according to Parfit, is that it will lead us to revise widely held moral beliefs that are mistaken. Not only will appeal to Kant's Law of Nature Formula have this effect, on Parfit's view, it will also challenge common sense beliefs here in an especially forceful way.


When Parfit comes to apply the Law of Nature Formula to the each-we dilemmas he does so with a proviso. This is that we consider acts whose rightness depends at least in part on their predictable effects. The point Parfit is after here is that certain types of maxims are fine if restrictively applied whilst they would become problematic if widely adopted. This type of problem is widely stated in secondary literature on Kant's universal law formulas and would require more consideration than can be given here. Parfit's example is of the maxim "have no children so I can devote myself to philosophy", a maxim that is fine in restricted application but would be disastrous if adopted universally.This is what is termed by Parfit the "permissible acts objection".


With regard to these "permissible acts" most maxims concerning them are formulated in a conditional way and this points to Parfit to restrictions on the maxims in question that are taken by him to be broadly in accord with the standards of the hypothetical imperative (though he doesn't explicitly refer here to the hypothetical imperative). However, in accord with Parfit's general conflation of maxims with intentions he reformulates the Law of Nature Formula to say that we act wrongly unless what we are intentionally doing is something that we could rationally will everyone to do.


After considering this first objection Parfit moves on to a second one. This again is formulated in terms of effects of adopting certain maxims. However, in this case, the problem is taken to be that Kant's general standard is that of an ideal world. Parfit here follows Christine Korsgaard in stating that there might be a problem with stating things in terms of ideal worlds since, in the "actual" world, disastrous results could ensue from following maxims that would ideally be alright. This "Ideal World Objection" applies, for example, to any maxims that rule against violence as such since, in the "actual" world, use of it cannot be unrestrictedly ruled out. However, once we have admitted this and formulated maxims to meet it, there is a different ideal world objection, namely, that maxims might thus become too permissive.


This objection concerning permissiveness is applied by Parfit to the general formulations that are often given of rule consequentialism, and used to further revise the Law of Nature formula. However the revision that arises from considering the permissiveness objection also has the effect of making the kind of consequentialism that Parfit has been building in to the moral situation one that becomes closer to that envisaged by act consequentialists. The chapter closes with this construal of the Law of Nature Formula having become thus close to a modified notion of rule consequentialism that appears well on the way to act consequentialism.

Parfit and Kant on Respect and Value (II)

Chapter 10 of On What Matters is officially entitled "respect and value", a topic that was previously treated by Parfit in Chapter 6 of Climbing the Mountain which I responded to here. However, in the published form of On What Matters, Parfit has combined this discussion with that of the "greatest good", a topic that was given a separate chapter in Climbing the Mountain and which, when combined with the account of respect and value, makes this chapter a complicated one to evaluate. The previous account of the "greatest good" was given extended treatment in an earlier posting. 


The chapter opens with a description of Kant's contention that there is a respect requirement related to the Formula of Humanity that indicates that this requirement is not action-guiding. In the process of making this statement Parfit rejects Allen Wood's conception that respect is here to be viewed as an "expressive" notion. Whilst Wood's notion is problematic I am not convinced by Parfit's argument against it which appears to consist in the claim that the respect requirement is not sufficient to demarcate wrong-making characteristics. The respect requirement is, I would think, part of a "clue" to the meaning Kant is giving to "humanity" in the Formula of Humanity.


One of the problems here is that Parfit does not attempt to locate a specifically Kantian notion of rational nature as, when he responds to Wood, he takes it that the notion of rational nature has no specific content. The other problem is that he simply follows Wood in rejecting certain of Kant's specific claims in practical ethics as misapplications of Kantian normative principles without saying enough about the ways in which such misapplications can arise. 


Parfit's object here, is, however, different from the one that would be attained by focusing on the questions I have just mentioned. The object is, as the chapter title suggests, to look at the relationship between Kant's notion of "respect" and an account of "value" and when the subject of "value" enters the chapter Parfit becomes more interesting. Kant makes the claim that there is a "dignity" that attaches to humanity that is distinct from "price" and Parfit connects this point to the Rawlsian conception that the right is prior to the good. However, the argument that Parfit then proceeds to develop does not go in the direction it does for Rawls.


Parfit begins his response to the Kantian claim about "dignity" and the associated notion of the priority of the right by introducing distinctions of his own. Many things are, Parfit tells us, "good or bad" in a reason-implying sense. What this means is spelled out as follows: "Such things have certain kinds of properties or features that would, in some situations, give us or others reason to respond to these things in certain ways". Now, some of these things have a "value" that is one that we think should be promoted and this is typically how happiness and the negation of suffering have been approached. In such a situation, however, it is "these things, not their value, that we have reasons to promote".


The promotion in question refers, on Parfit's conception, to "events", meaning acts and states of affairs. Events are good to Parfit both as means and as ends in themselves and this is part of the overall view that he terms "actualism". According to "actualism" as Parfit conceives of it, events are good as ends when the appropriate features are "intrinsic" to them but only as means when the features in question are only brought about by them but not inherent in the acts or states of affairs themselves. On Parfit's view actualism "covers everything whose goodness is directly relevant to any decision about what we should do". Since this is so, all action-guiding requirements are described by it. This does not entail that actualism is a general theory of the good, however, since it applies only to events and other things than events are capable of being good. Since Parfit follows Thomas Scanlon in viewing "teleological" theories as those that identify intrinsic goodness with events it follows that Parfit does not view actualism as a "teleological" theory though, in stating this, Parfit adopts an eccentric usage of the term "teleological".


Having spun so much out of the kind of value that is to be promoted Parfit turns next to the kind of value that is to be respected. When there is something of this sort, on Parfit's view, it is the things in question and not their "value" that we respect (which parallels his claim concerning "promotion"). When something has the kind of value that requires respect then certain kinds of "actions and attitudes" according to Scanlon are called for. But these can vary since not everything that is worthy of respect should, simply by meeting that criterion, get treated as, for example, worthy of being preserved. However acting in ways that indicate the required respect is acting in a way that manifests a "value" that should be promoted on Parfit's view.


After having made these distinctions Parfit returns to Kant's claims about value and begins by discussing three different kinds of end that Kant appears to recognise. These three are: a) ends-to-be-produced; b) existent ends; c) ends-in-themselves. There is one feature of Parfit's listing here that is odd since the second category is assumed by him to be met by rational beings whilst the third is also so it is not clear how he distinguishes between them. The second group is also initially mentioned as something that is to be "respected" rather than "promoted" on the view of many.


Parfit's first aim in discussing Kantian claims about "value" is to suggest that Kant does recognise the conception of ends-to-be-produced. In one sense Kant clearly does since hypothetical imperatives generally concern them. However the "good will" is also related to by Parfit as an end we should, on Kantian grounds, aim for and hence try to produce. Here I think there is a confusion. In a sense it is evidently right to say that it is better to have a good will than not. However, this does not entail that the production of the good will is something that contains distinct recommendations that are separate from following the priority of the right and since that is so then describing them in a structurally teleological way does not appear appropriate. A similar point can also be made concerning Parfit's assimilation of the realm of ends to the category of ends-to-be-produced. The most striking such example of a problem with Parfit's assimilation occurs, however, with regard to the summum bonum which is referred to by Kant in the Groundwork precisely by reference to the categorical imperative and not by assumptions of any further sort (e.g. Ak. 4: 438).


Parfit reiterates his failure to recognise any specifically Kantian conception of rationality subsequently since he assimilates it first to "cleverness" and secondly simply to morality in general and he has clearly never tried to grapple with Kant's extensive discussion of reason in the Critique of Pure Reason. 


When Parfit returns to the question of the relationship between the right and the good it is after he has assimilated the claim Kant makes about the summum bonum with ends-to-be-produced. This enables Parfit to expound a specific "formula" of the "greatest good" so that everyone is enjoined to "strive to promote" a world that meets the ideal of the summum bonum. This assimilation is one that is subsequently amplified when Parfit over-rides Kant's caution with regard to the virtue of others. 


It is now that Parfit's discussion becomes particularly dense as distinctions accumulate at this point as he introduces criteria for how to describe act consequentialism, hedonistic act utilitarianism and value-based act consequentialism. If act consequentialism requires that everyone ought always to aim at whatever would best achieve "one or more common aims", then clearly hedonistic act utilitarianism specifies these aims either positively or negatively. Parfit understands, however, that the problem with these theories is that they are entirely person-neutral and the basic objection to them is that we do have and value many person-relative ends. 


The appeal to value-based act consequentialism appears in the context of Parfit's description of moral theories that are either wholly or partly value-based and value-based act consequentialism specifies that what we ought to do is whatever would make things go best (and is thus optimific). By contrast, some other moral theories assume that the notion of the "good" should be related not to the notion of "value" but instead to that of "ought". Some theories are reductionist in the sense of attempting to assimilate "value" to the "ought" or vice versa but Parfit rejects such a move citing G.E. Moore as someone for whom the "ought" could be reduced to the "good" and then citing Kant as an example of the opposite view. 


Parfit's account of Kant's view here is drawn out carefully and is worth some attention. Parfit argues that Kant uses the term "good" in an "ought-based" rather than a "value-based" sense. After making this claim Parfit returns to assessing the kind of requirement at work in his alleged formula of the greatest good. Surprisingly to most of us Parfit assimilates this view to a form of consequentialism but denies that it is a value-based form of it since it can be stated without reference to optimific language. This weakening of the consequentialist label is furthered when Parfit points out that it is no part of his conception that Kant is an "act" consequentialist, not least because reference to the "formula of the highest good" is not sufficient for Kant given the other formulas of the categorical imperative are the basis of the highest good having any chance of being attained.


Having recognised this point Parfit also indicates that this view of the summum bonum relates not merely to universal virtue but also to the happiness Kant speaks of as "deserved" since it follows from Parfit's reconstruction that it is following often rigorous rules that would best promote happiness. Parfit somewhat surprisingly assimilates this point to Sidgwick's suggestion that happiness is a second-order good. This is surprising since Kant's point about "deserved" happiness seems to be a different kind of claim than Sidgwick's given that Kant is aiming at indicating the reasons why one could assume that one had a "right" to happiness, not the basis of realistic motivations as Sidgwick is after.


Parfit now restrictively defines consequentialism to mean a "value-based" view and, given that he has defined the Kantian conception as instead "ought-based" should at this point openly state that he does not take Kant's view to be consequentialist. Instead he enters into an account of how plausible optimific views are and appears to arrive at a defence of a form of rule consequentialism based on this discussion. After going through this point Parfit returns to Kant's apparently strict view on lying and conceives Kant's claims about lying in reference to "harm". This account of "harm", like Kant's discussion of "happiness" in the summum bonum are related to his general argument about "desert" and rather than concluding the discussion in this chapter with some argument concerning consequentialism, Kant and goodness and value, Parfit instead drops a hint only that he is going to challenge the Kantian view of desert.

Philip Kitcher's review of Parfit

Philip Kitcher has published a review of On What Matters in the New Republic and it is available here. The review is unusually long, as is fitting given the length of Parfit's book and it is divided into four parts. In the first part Kitcher responds to the popular conception of ethics as based, in some way, on religion which he uses to bring out the general reasons why philosophers tend to resist this assimilation. As Kitcher states, Plato was already suspicious of such a connection and posed some clear problems for anyone who wished to take religion as the basis of ethics. Not only is there such a rich tradition of philosophy seeking to set ethics apart from religion but, even given the reign of specialisation in contemporary intellectual life, ethics seems to be one area where philosophy contributes to the general cultural conversation.


Having opened with these general comments Kitcher introduces Parfit to New Republic's readers as the author of Reasons and Persons and points out that the new book will be intensively studied given the status that the earlier book gave Parfit. The second section of the review turns to some of the distinctive elements of On What Matters introducing, for example, Parfit's discussion of "reasons" and his search for a "supreme principle" of morality. After mentioning the formulation of the "supreme principle" that Parfit eventually reaches, Kitcher mentions that Parfit does not take this principle to be capable of deciding all ethical questions (which is hardly surprising). Parfit's search for the supreme principle takes place by means of assessing and bringing together the rival claims of consequentialism, contractualism and something called "Kantianism" though there would be rather a lot to say about the ways Parfit characterises the latter (and in this blog I have discussed in some detail a number of elements of Parfit's account).


Since the first volume seems to present the manner that Parfit sees the problem and already to invoke the tools by which he aims to resolve it, the question of the status of the second volume of his work is a pertinent one that Kitcher raises. It appears to have two central points, one of which is to state and respond to the views of a number of critics of the views espoused in the first volume, and the other of which is to explore the nature of Parfit's problem with naturalistic views of ethics. 


The third section of Kitcher's review is where he begins to lay out reservations concerning the positions adopted in On What Matters. Whilst one central question concerns the success of Parfit's convergence between the three theories he takes seriously, Kitcher raises two other questions as ones he is more concerned with than this one. Kitcher's first question concerns the goal Parfit has adopted, in terms of assuming that the convergence between the three theories would have important practical consequences if established. The reason Kitcher appears to be sceptical about this does not strike me, however, as a good one. Kitcher's scepticism concerns whether the formulation of a successful theory of convergence with regard to the major traditions of ethical theory would really matter given that we would still have the messy task of making ethical judgments. But this seems to me to rest on a misunderstanding of the import of ethical theory. Surely no one would seriously contend that a successful ethical theory would remove the need for judgment? Anyone who thought this would have a very odd view not merely of ethics but of the relationship between general formulations and particular circumstances in relation to theoretical models. No theoretical model can "saturate" the terrain it describes which is why there are levels of generality within such models and one of the ways these levels are marked precisely concerns the need for judgments of application. So it strikes me as odd to think that the point of Parfit's endeavour would be the removal of the appeal to judgment (though if it is successful it should presumably guide the process by which we form judgments, it could not tell us exhaustively when and where we need to apply them).


The reason why Kitcher appears to think that this appeal to judgment is somehow an objection to Parfit concerns the way in which he understands the formulation of a "supreme principle". Kitcher, in appealing in a pluralist way, to the notion that many principles might be needed, appears to take the invocation of a "supreme principle" to be something that leaves behind diversity of considerations though this can hardly be held to be true of others, like Kant, who have searched for such supreme principles. Kant takes the "supreme principle" of morality to be the principle of autonomy but anyone reading about the categorical imperative would be aware that distinct formulations of it exist and that these formulations appear to pick out different ways in which action can be assessed. This point, like the one about judgment, appears to be based on an odd view of Kitcher's.


Kitcher's second objection concerns the nature of Parfit's appeal to thought experiments. Again Kitcher points to the need for readers, when reviewing Parfit's thought experiments to come to views about whether the experiments in question have been formulated well by Parfit and whether they support his conclusions. Kitcher argues that Parfit possesses "no standard of objectivity for provoking reliable responses" which appears again to mistake what Parfit is up to. The suggestion of a standard of objectivity that is separate or distinct from Parfit's conception of "reasons" strikes me as otiose but, further, the assessment of thought experiments, whilst difficult given how far they take us from our ordinary use of concepts, is very standard in a lot of contemporary ethical theory and it appears odd to strike at Parfit in particular for favouring it. Some of Parfit's critics on this score, such as Allen Wood, have resorted on occasion to such experiments themselves and it is hard to imagine moral theory proceeding without some version of them.


The real thrust of Kitcher's problem with thought experiments is, however, posed in a sharper way when he suggests that the experiments are "rigged" and that questions of life and death appear to rest upon them. In fact it is not obvious to me that Parfit's theories rest as solidly upon the appeal to thought experiments as this suggests as he usually uses them in order not to decide an issue but rather to sharpen the precision of a formula. Secondly, in taking them to be "rigged" Kitcher appears to have recourse to a distinct way of describing ethical dilemmas that does not involve important presuppositions and I find this hard to comprehend.


In his response to Parfit's criticism of naturalism Kitcher fastens on an apparent admission of the role of intuition by Parfit and appears to take Parfit to view intuition in an especially mysterious way, something again that seems to require us to think that the appeal Parfit makes to intuition is different in kind or more suspect than the appeal others have made to it. Again, this is difficult to comprehend. The sum of the problems raised in the third part of Kitcher's review is meant to lead one to the conclusion that Parfit's work lacks the potential to contribute to the broader cultural discussion of ethics with which Kitcher began but it is hard for me to see that he has succeeded in making this point.


The fourth and final part of Kitcher's review presents an alternative to the conception of ethical theory that Kitcher views Parfit as having presented. This alternative is presented initially on epistemic grounds with Kitcher again picturing Parfit's method in question-begging terms as apparently being an heroic attempt to generate ethical obligations ab initio (a view for which I find no support in my reading of On What Matters). In response Kitcher appeals to a kind of Aristotelian picture of beginning in the middle of things, by which he means not in the middle of common sense morality but rather from the morass of detail provided about human beings within the human, natural and social sciences. In other words, Kitcher, like Blackburn, adopts an essentially Humean picture of moral theory that sees philosophy as offering no more than a generalization of the results of investigations into "human nature". 


Ethics is thus seen on Kitcher's picture as a form of social technology that developed by trial and error in humanity's natural history, an approach that he fails to see as having substantial problems in accounting for the apparently necessarily binding character of ethical obligation. This appears to be the basis of Kitcher's rather misguided resistance to searches for the "supreme principle of morality". Kitcher's review strikes me as misguided in the types of objections and problems it poses to Parfit and the way in which it is so misguided reflects a real divide within ethical theory, a divide between those who take the point of such theory to have a distinctive philosophical basis and those, instead, who would follow Hume in advocating a drastic diminution of the role of philosophy in intellectual life. Whilst I have voiced, and will continue to voice, many criticisms of Parfit's work, it seems to me that in relation to this divide, Parfit is on the right side.

Parfit and Kant on the Greatest Good

In my last posting on Parfit I looked at Chapter 6 of Climbing the Mountain, a chapter that still corresponded to part of the second of his 2002 lectures. In this posting I am moving on to Chapter 7 of Climbing the Mountain, a chapter that offers material that is not found in the second of the 2002 lectures. 


Chapter 7 is concerned with the notion of the "greatest good" and enlists Kant in order to discuss it. Following Kant's discussions in the Critique of Practical Reason Parfit pulls out what he terms the "formula of the greatest good" which, in Parfit's formulation, reads: "everyone ought always to strive to promote a world of universal virtue and deserved happiness". The relation between virtue and happiness was explicitly set forth in the dialectic of the Critique of Practical Reason as a way of seeing that "the good" is not homogeneous since it encompasses matters of real normative import and a demand of inclination. In the Critique of Practical Reason this leads to Kant formulating what he terms there an "antinomy" and which is resolved only by means of utilising the practical postulates. 


Parfit's discussion abstracts from the account of practical postulates and the dialectic between the two elements of "the good" in order to present the "formula" as stating a goal we should aim to achieve. However this aim is one that it is necessary that Parfit distinguish from the classic one attributed to hedonistic act utilitarianism (HAU). The view of HAU concerns the maximisation of happiness and is understood by Parfit as "wholly telic" in concentrating entirely on promotion of a common end or aim. Some telic theories are also described by Parfit as "value-based" in the sense that they appeal to claims about the reason-involving goodness of what they tell us to achieve. This reference to an impartial reason-involving sense is built into Parfit's conception of "consequentialism". 


Parfit also discusses the relationship between claims about what is good and what we ought morally to do distinguishing between theories that take "the good" to be fundamental and define what ought to be done in terms of it on the one hand from those that take the conception of moral obligatoriness to be fundamental and derive the sense of the good from it. Parfit affirms, however, a different view according to which neither of these terms is taken to be fundamental and takes them to be independent of each other. In taking such a stance, however, Parfit is departing from Kant as he goes on to acknowledge, since Kant views the notion of the "good" as determined by the moral law as he clearly states in the Critique of Practical Reason. This commitment of Kant to the priority of the right over the good is central to his resistance to consequentialism and is of no small importance.


Rather than addressing this point immediately Parfit prefers instead to look at some of Kant's other claims concerning goodness. So, for example, Kant makes the statement, at the very beginning of the Groundwork, to the effect that good wills have a form of goodness that is higher than all other kinds. Parfit converts this claim, following the logic of the argument of the first part of the Groundwork, into the classic formulation that we ought to try to have wills that are dutiful. 


After presenting these two opening moves Parfit goes on to look at the claim with which he opened the chapter, to wit, that everyone ought to strive to promote the greatest good, a view based on the conception of the summum bonum. The point of reintroducing reference to this claim is to compare it now with the act consequentialist view that everyone ought always to try to produce the greatest amount of good. As Parfit states, it may seem that the act consequentialist view is close to what Kant is after when Kant discusses the greatest good. However since Kant's claim concerning the greatest good is one that can be translated back into the apparently more sober point concerning a world of universal virtue and deserved happiness, then it follows that Kant's conception, unlike that of the act consequentialist, is not a value-based view. Kant's view is ought-based, not value-based, and so has a different foundation to the act consequentialist view despite surface similarities of formulation.


Having distinguished Kant's view from that of the act consequentialists Parfit goes on to look at the relationship between Kant's claims about the greatest good and the formulas of universal law and humanity. It is clear from the pre-eminent status of the appeals to the other formulas that it is by following the moral law, understood as formulated in them, that the promotion of the greatest good will be best followed according to Kant. This seems an unexceptionable claim but Parfit conjoins to it the view that Kant is committed also to the suggestion that following the moral law is sufficient to give the happiness that their virtue would make them deserve and this is a clear error on Parfit's part. Kant makes no such assumption as this but only presents the much weaker claim that following the moral law would make one worthy of happiness, not that it will be sufficient to enable this happiness.


The reason why Parfit makes this mistake is due to the kind of concentration he has on happiness. Parfit is on sounder ground when he reports Sidgwick's remark that happiness is best taken as a second-order rather than a first-order end since taking it as a first-order end will often be self-defeating. This suggestion is mixed up by Parfit with an understanding of Kant's claim concerning worthiness to be happy but Kant is making no suggestion here of taking happiness to be an end in adopting the moral law (even a second-order end). Rather Kant is making the quite different point that it is only in making the moral law our chief guide in action that we become worthy of receipt of happiness, a point quite different to Sidgwick's.


Parfit is much more concerned with Sidgwick's claim than with Kant's quite different one and relates Sidgwick's claim to the need to follow the precepts of common sense morality (at least for the most part). Having made this point concerning the sense in which adopting happiness is not a first end requirement Parfit turns to assessing the claim bound up with this one concerning common sense morality. One way of understanding the connection between common sense morality and the promotion of happiness is by means of what Parfit terms the "marginalist" view. On this view we decide how much good an act would do by determining what difference it would make. So: "the good that some act would do is the amount by which, if this act were done, things would go better than they would have gone if this act had not been done".


This "marginalist" view can, however, imply some very implausible things. So if, for example, the actions of four people coordinated together are sufficient to save a group of others then five people undertaking this action is superfluous and if five people do join it would appear to follow that none of the five saved the lives in question. In order to avoid this consequence, we can appeal to the claim that it is what people do in conjunction that produces the right outcomes, a claim that Parfit terms the "share of the total view" so that "when some group of people together produce some good effect, the good that each person does is this person's share of the total good".


The "share of the total view" avoids the implausible consequence of the "marginalist" view and leads to ignoring the specific effects of particular actions in focusing instead on the way that actions accumulate to produce results. As Parfit mentions Hume shared a similar view, though Hume's conception is even wider in scope. Hume's view is termed by Parfit the "whole scheme view" and asks us to look beyond the specific acts that may, considered alone, have bad effects to the set of acts that are done at different times or by different people in order to assess the best effects. The acts that, considered in this set manner, have such effects are then the ones that we should regard as doing the most good. The appeal of referring to a view such as Hume's for Parfit is that it leads away from act consequentialism towards grounds for accepting general rules in accordance with their overall effects.


After making these claims, claims that require a more general notion of consequentialism than is involved in act consequentialism, Parfit makes a parallel move with regard to Kant. In considering Kant's writings concerning lying Parfit emphasises the point that Kant views lying as undermining humanity in making the source of right "unusable". This point, which would require sustained attention to the role of the discussion of lying (and promising) in Kant's philosophy of right, is used by Parfit to make the more minimal point that it appears that Kant's response to lying is part of a commitment on Kant's part to rejecting things that cause "harm" (a claim that can only be sustained with an unusually broad sense of "harm" being given here). 


Subsequently to producing this reading of Kant's view of lying Parfit goes on to suggest a further way of aligning Kant's view with that of a form of consequentialism when he cites some fragments of Kant's in a rather tendentious way. In a lecture of 1778 Kant speaks of worthiness to be happy as consisting in the practical agreement of our actions with the idea of universal happiness (Ak. 28: 377). This is viewed by Parfit as equivalent to a form of hedonistic act utilitarianism but what is missed by Parfit when he makes this claim is any account of the status of "ideas" in Kant's practical philosophy. Absent this the parallel with utilitarianism is plausible but once it is present it shows that Kant is far from taking as an actual consequence of virtuous action an increase in overall happiness.


Parfit is concentrated on viewing the ideal world that Kant understands through the summum bonum as stating a single ultimate end rather than aligning two distinct forms of good and also being placed in a dialectical situation precisely due to the lack of congruence between these two forms of good. Parfit does, in conclusion, understand that the reference to the summum bonum includes a conception of desert that is distinct from the formulas of the categorical imperative. Parfit's chapter unexpectedly breaks off however, just after he  has stated he will show Kant's view of desert to be mistaken.


This chapter introduces new material and the account of the greatest good in Kant provides Parfit with opportunities to attempt a form of assimilation of Kant's view to consequentialist ones but only due to failing to refer back again to the centrality of the priority of the right over the good that Parfit cited earlier in the chapter.